'Round the Sphere: Dirty Tightie Whities and Wailing on Wonks!

Pretty soon I'm off to my son's high school graduation and there's no time to start anything productive, so I'll just make this quick post about what has caught my attention this week 'round the old Pharma Blogosphere.

First those Tightie Whities
Aside from being recognized as one of The 50 Best Business Blogs by The Times of London, Pharmalot is also recognized -- at least by me -- for sporting a great new look and crisp little graphics. I especially like the dirty tightie whities Ed Silverman used to illustrate a recent post about the problems faced by Acomplia (aka Zimulti).

Ed suggests that we invest in underwear makers. I would point out, however, that most underwear makers are in China or India and run sweatshops. Based on a recent report --- see "Drugmakers Need New Business Model" -- many pharmaceutical companies may need to offshore their business as well if they are to remain viable. "Companies must expand their pipelines by looking to countries such as India and China, where research is burgeoning, and the industry must redesign the drug development process," the report said.

Wailing on Wonks
Meanwhile, the PR Wonks at Drug Wonks are being wailed on from the left and from the right and all over the place! The funny thing is, I pointed out the Wonks conflicts of interest way back in February (see "Drug Wonks are PR Wonks"), but that tree falling in the forest made no sound.

Now you can't swing a Kitty without hitting a post dissing Pitts and or Goldberg, the 2 most prolific drug Wonks. I think CL Psych started it with the post "Welcome to the PR Machine." Since then, others have taken up the clarion call.

Most recently, Jim Edwards over at BrandweekNRX Wailed on Wonks for their attacks on Moore (see "Why DrugWonks' Campaign to Demonize Michael Moore Will Fail"). But there's much more to Jim's post than anti-Drug Wonkisms. He actually is making a point about our health insurance industry that Moore never even touched on! Read it and weep.

Peter Rost over at Question Authority went so far as to ask "Is Big Pharma Secretly Taking Over the Blog World?" It may be less of a conspiracy theory than it sounds. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal profiled a company that can improve your reputation on the Web. One method -- drown out the bad stuff with counter-content that says you're a saint! By the looks of pharmagather, that seems to be the methodology employed by Drug Wonks, which makes one small post after another all day long. Of course, Pharmalot does the same thing, so I guess one balances the other!